On The Shelf: Final look at Free Comic Book Day 2023

 Random House's recent best seller, The Last Kids on Earth, is adapted into comics form, and retitled, The Last Comics on Earth. Max Brailler & Joshua Pruett's look at DIY independent comics is an amusing little flight of fancy & imagination, reflecting the growing trend of independent creators to self-publish, something we've seen here in the 518 with Mike Spring, who has a new graphic novel coming out soon. Last Comics on Earth is aimed for tweens & teens.

Rating: B.

From the brilliant mind of writer Greg Pak comes Mech Cadets, a love letter after a fashion to those giant robot animes we've seen since the 60's (i.e. Gigantor). Mech Cadets debuts in August on Netflix, so Kaboom, an arm of Boom! Studios, is warming readers up with this nugget of joy. It isn't drawn the same as your average manga, but the designs do look like something from out of the past.

Rating: A.

Aftershock Comics offers up Seismic Stories to preview a pair of titles, particularly The Darkness We Brought Back. An original series, Animosity, leads off the volume with a 4 page teaser. In a word, bizarre. The whole book, in fact, is.

Rating: B-.

Remember when there was an anime on Fox a number of years ago, Shaman King? From that series comes a manga, Shaman King: Flowers, from Kodansha. Flowers was actually released two years ago, and an anime is headed for Netflix.

Rating: B.

Not to be outdone, Viz serves up Choujin X, a black & white manga that will be hard to understand for the uninitiated. Strictly for manga fans.

Rating: B.

Ablaze's Animal Castle introduces readers to not one, but two volumes of the graphic novel. Volume 2 is cover featured, but inside, it's prefaced by volume 1. A curious tale aimed at grade schoolers.

Rating: B.

Oni Press presents a double feature.

Lights, written & illustrated by Brenna Thummler, hits stores in September, and is previewed with 10 pages of story. Thummler's previous graphic novels have been titled, Sheets & Delicates. Is there a pattern here? Maybe.

Zachary Sterling's Punch Up leads off the volume. For teenagers, that's all I will say.

Rating: B.

Finally, Titan Comics blesses us with Runescape: Untold Tales of The God Wars, which boasts some of the best artwork of the lot. I believe Runescape is a video game? Could be a companion piece for Titan's forthcoming Conan The Barbarian, as it may reach the same audience.

Rating: A-.